Warren Murphy: Arabian Nightmare

"Can you see them?" asked the President.

"No, al-Ze'em!" came the crisp answer. "Only the great blades."

One scimitar twisted and whirled, pushing back at the other. On the backswing, it sliced through the green dome as if it were a simple bowl. The crash and rattle of falling debris made everyone assembled on the roof think of an earthquake.

"There!" said the education minister. "I see one! It is the yellow-haired demoness."

Between two buildings, Kimberly Baynes stepped into view. Her slim body was entirely nude. With each swing, her hair flung about like a horse's tail. The blade-its hilt larger than she-was firmly grasped by four spidery arms.

"She is very strong, even for a woman with four arms," a voice muttered.

"She had come to Greater Araby to sow destruction and flaunt her shameless un-Islamic customs," said President Azziz grimly.

"She is certainly flaunting her customs," said the culture minister turned defense minister, who had joined them. They noticed he was training a pair of field glasses on the scene.

"Are her . . . um . . . customs as large as those of our Arab women?" asked the president.

"No, they are actually quite small, these customs."

The field glasses began to make the rounds. Everyone wanted a peek at the surprisingly small charms of the American demon from hell.

Then they heard a whirring whup-whup-whup sound bouncing between the baroque manmade canyons of Abominadad.

From the north came a trio of Soviet-made Hind gunships. The big helicopters floated over the rooftops, their rotors amazingly quiet for such massive craft. Their desert-colored bodies were heavy with rocket pods and chin-mounted machine guns. They resembled nothing so much as high-tech baked potatoes.

The Hinds came in low, circled the zone of conflict once, and broke off to attack.

"They are doomed now," promised the defense minister.

A pod let go, gushing a string of rockets. They arrowed down toward the broken mosquelike monument, destroying it utterly.

The upraised blades poised in the air like startled moth feelers.

"They missed," said the education minister.

"The defense minister is new at his job," suggested the president, remembering how it had been for him. He had been a mere orderly at the start of the long Irait-Irug war. Twelve previous defense ministers had been executed or perished in "accidents" after displeasing former President Maddas Hinsein. Eventually Azziz had found himself next in line. Since execution came more quickly to those who declined field promotions than to those who angered the president, he had accepted the offer joyfully.

Another Hind made a run at the flashing scimitars.

This one cut loose with its chin-mounted machine gun. It seemed a sensible approach, inasmuch as the rate of fire was capable of felling a small forest. Until the other scimitar-the one not wielded by the nude blond demon-swept across the skyline and simply chopped the tail off the Hind.

It fell in two pieces. After it disappeared behind a baroque toadstool-shaped water tower, a fireball of boiling flame and sooty smoke ascended to the sky from the spot where it had last been seen.

The third Hind withdrew to a respectful distance, where it was quickly joined by the second. They hovered like fat dragonflies, lining up their guns and rocket pods.

"This is excellent," said the defense minister. "They are going to obliterate the demons now."

Evidently the so-called demons realized this too. They ceased their fearsome clash. The scimitars poised momentarily like a cosmic pair of shears.

Then one of them pulled back, paused, and swept out.

It was too far away to strike the menacing gunships, although they wobbled in the sky from the backwash of air.

The scimitar drew back all the way, disappearing from sight.

When it appeared again, it was a spinning disk of metal that flew through the air with an ominous sound like a gigantic bull roarer.

"Impossible!" President Azziz exploded. "He has thrown it!"

Like a giant rotor that had slipped its mast, the scimitar whirled toward the hovering Hinds.

Every member of the Revolting Command Council knew what the result was going to be. Only the defense minister, who saw his career going down in flames on the first day of the job, turned away as the giant scimitar decapitated the poised Hinds of their supporting rotors.

The rotors flew off in two directions, shedding sharp blades that caught the glancing sunlight. One snapped a minaret like a breadstick.

The Hinds dropped like baked potatoes from seared hands and the blast of fire that they surrendered upon impact caused the sweat on every face of the Revolting Command Council to evaporate.

"What should we do?" muttered the defense minister. "The Americans are obviously unstoppable."

"Why do you ask us?" demanded Razzik Azziz. "You are the new defense minister."

"But you are the old one, al-Ze'em. You have expertise in these matters. I am only a fortunate culture minister. All I know is torture and espionage. Neither of which applies here."

Razzik Azziz looked out over the smoke and flames peppering the heart of the city. Only one scimitar waved amid the boiling smoke. Oddly, it had grown quiescent, as if the wielder was unwilling to carry on mortal combat with his unarmed opponent.

"I say we immediately release all hostages and surrender unconditionally," Azziz said.

"If you do that," put in the education minister, "the Americans will insist upon war-crimes tribunals and necks to fill out their cruel nooses."

"Then we will surrender the architect of these crimes, our dead Precious Leader," Azziz said.

"But the Americans will insist upon a live neck. What they call a scrape goat."

"Scapegoat," corrected President Razzik Azziz, who was growing impatient with this too-smart education minister. "Whom should we offer them?"

On the roof of the Palace of Sorrows, the eyes of the Revolting Command Council flicked away from the face of their leader. Guilty looks made their expressions strange.

"Answer me!" demanded President Azziz.

It was, of course, the insolent education minister who offered a trembling opinion.

"It is not whom we will offer them, al-Ze'em," he said tightly. "It is whom they will insist upon hanging. And with our beloved Maddas in the merciful hands of Allah, you, al-Ze'em, are the natural choice."

President Razzik Azziz blinked, a nervous tic crawling along his mustachioed features. It started at his left eye, worked down diagonally, causing his nostrils to flare, and finally sent his mustache jerking like an inchworm on a hot plate.

Now, too late, he understood. It was all very clear to him. The reason no one else had leapt into the president's chair before him was a simple one. It was no longer the seat of power, but a throne of death.

And he had claimed it for his own.

Chapter 5

Harold Smith was surprised to find the Master of Sinanju seated on a tatami mat at the foot of his hospital bed.

Chiun wore a bone-white kimono which Smith had personally recovered from a steamer trunk in the Master of Sinanju's nearby home. He sat lotus-style, his back arched, his wizened features screwed up in concentration as he inscribed quick black brushstrokes on a parchment scroll. The overhead lights made hot blobs of light on his bald head. A covered wok simmered at his feet.

"The President has received an urgent communication from Abominadad," Smith began.

Without looking up, Chiun nodded.

"The defense minister of Irait has offered to release all hostages if the U.S. will call off the destructive forces they claim we have unleashed upon their city."

Chiun frowned, adding a brushstroke to the geometrical pattern he had been carefully creating on the parchment.